Holiday fun! Went blue, silver, and white with the tree this year... and had a lovely time celebrating Thanksgiving with my family. I am most thankful for my friends this year! Shout out to my island lovelies.

This is some of my collection. My personal style is quite varied, as you can see. I haven't posted here in awhile and a friend of mine has really inspired me, as of late, on the fashion front and with life in general. Shout out to thebethyblueeyes. Check her out on youtube.﻿

Do not adjust your television (erhm, computer screen) Hanson Takeover will officially commence...

So, as I promised the man himself I would, I am here to share some inspirational material from a fellow fanson:

Ricky Maye so generously sent me some stickers (sticker collector here!) and a t-shirt for FREE!!! with the promise that I would share his works over social networking or through any form I so desired. Of course I am happy to do so! Ricky is an author, public speaker and an activist. I encourage anyone to challenge convention and, from what I gather, he has made this his mission as well. Check out his stuff at rickymaye.com ...super nice dude that happens to share a passion of mine. That being Hanson.

As long as I am on the subject of Hanson I just cannot pass up the opportunity to promote 3 of the most awesome guys in existence. Not only do they have a new album coming out (June 18, '13) but they have a beer, which is a microbrew called Mmmhops, that debuted at The Hangover 3 premiere. According to beerpulse.com it was a sample batch and for promotional purposes only. The final recipe is yet to be determined. In fact, Hanson was in the brewery this week working on a pilot brew. I don't know a lot of terminology as far as beer is concerned and am not so much a beer drinker. What I have gathered from Hanson themselves and from others is that it is described as a craft beer and a pale ale. They use the tagline 'from the guys that invented Mmmbop'. Supposedly it will be available at their shows for their upcoming world tour and they hope to supply it to retailers in the fall as well. Good luck guys!

Yeah, 16 yrs. later Mmmbop is being used in the opening scene in The Hangover 3. Hence the reason they were at the premiere. The scene in which it is featured... OMG! I saw the movie last weekend and of course it brings the same stupid-funny hilarity as the rest of the movies in the series do.

The new album, their sixth studio album, is called ANTHEM and they have released 'Get The Girl Back' as a single. There are a lot of cameos from young Hollywood stars in the GTGB video. Watch the video here and keep your eyes peeled to see if you can recognize some of them.

Just a few things I wanted to mention at this time. I had lent to me the next two books in the Wicked series (from the same friend who lent me the first book). My friend has her own library, which is a dream of mine, and has an interest in a lot of the same books as I do, so it works out well for me I guess. There are four books total in the series. I've had a slow start to begin reading them but plan to dedicate more time to them in the near future. What I've read so far falls in line pretty well with the first book and has that same sort of shock value that I think Maguire goes for. This a picture, of course, that I took of the two books.

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I also want to mention a lovely website from which I have ordered some things lately. The website is called Notnu... a play on not new. The web address is notnushop.com. I would describe it as an online thrift store, in mentioing it by word of mouth to a few people already, those were my exact words. Some words used on the site to describe it are formerly loved, vintage and handmade. At any rate, it is certainly a nice second hand store and it makes me feel good to support a small business, save money, and recycle. She made a handwritten side note inside the package to thank me for being a repeat customer as well, so all was very well and good and I am very pleased to have found such a site.

I found a lovely Oz quote and would like to share it with the world:"Why, we've had a revolution, your Majesty as you ought to know very well," replied the man; "and since you went away the women have been running things to suit themselves. I'm glad you have decided to come back and restore order, for doing housework and minding the children is wearing out the strength of every man in the Emerald City." "Hm!" said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully. "If it is such hard work as you say, how did the women manage it so easily?" "I really do not know" replied the man, with a deep sigh. "Perhaps the women are made of cast iron."Too cute, right? It is comforting to know a man who lived at least a century ago had such insight. This should give you all an idea of why I love this author so much. Right on L. Frank Baum!

I originally fell in love with this dude's song (and video) about his cheap tendencies (Thrift Shop, check it out for a good giggle). This morning I saw his video for Same Love and thought OMG, I knew I liked this guy for a reason. I didn't catch the beginning of the video so, seeing as he is not featured in the majority of the video, I didn't realize I was hearing Macklemore until the end of the video. His brazened efforts to speak out against hate... *swoon* It's truly beautiful, see it for yourself.

I finished reading Wicked, we painted our driveway and are in the process of installing a new closet organizer in our guest bedroom.

Okay, so Wicked was good, even great, but mind-blowingly not the child fairy tale type that one might expect it to be, like those of which I adored from L. Frank Baum. As previously mentioned, I have a love for Oz-ish things, so I have read all 14 of Baum's series of tales about the land of Oz. Wicked introduced adult themes such as sex and politics into my land of Oz. It was a little disconcerting at first but was interesting nonetheless. My friend who lent me the book is in New York right now and plans to see Wicked on Broadway while she is there. Lucky Duck!

(UPDATE: She was unable to go to New York because of the blizzard and bad weather conditions that were plauging that area at the time.)

As for the home repairs, our driveway was looking shabby and our HOA has been on our back to tidy it up. Hubby says I stacked too much stuff on the closet shelf and caused it to rip out of the wall. That is the reason for the new closet organizer.

I mentioned sneaker wedges in my last post and that I'd post some pictures, so I've gathered some images of this new style and compiled them here for your viewing pleasure. I made a sneaker wedge collage and spiffied it all up using a website called piZap.

Been wanting to do this (blogging/website thing) again for quite awhile now. I had a website for years but the webhost is no longer operating or something like that. So this is it! From hence forth, this will be the new domain over which we rule... just kidding. This is where I/we shall post anything I find interesting. The long-awaited new place for me to be creative. I came up with the whole "Realm" thing years ago, and used it on my website in the past, so it just stuck. I've had an amateur interest in webdesign and have always appreciated being able to have my own little chunk of cyber space. My hubby and I share a Facebook account as well. I don't expect him to actually contribute anything to this blog (although I'd be plesantly surprised if he did) but I like the idea of having a place to talk about things that interest the both of us.

Currently I don't have much to share with whoever it is that may read this blog. But there are a few things I could mention I guess. A co-worker lent Wicked to me and I am excited to read it. Have had an on-going fascination with anything Wizard of Oz related since childhood. I cannot wait for Oz the Great and Powerful to hit theaters in March. Besdies that, I'm liking the sneaker wedge trend that's going on now. I don't own any as of yet but I'd like to. Maybe I will post some pictures of them some time soon.

Nothing else late breaking to report as of now. I'm still learning the dynamics of using blogspot. If anyone has comments or would like to share anything with me please feel free. So this completes my first blog here on blogspot!
-Catherine